The contributor to the story, Price Pritchett says that trying harder may not work always. We may need to work totally different at times to achieve greater levels of success. We need to get out of our comfort zones and do something which breaks our old habits and we achieve our results by doing something different, something better. “If you keep on doing same thing again and again, you are doing to get same results, again and again”. Here is the story:

The author is sitting in a quiet room at the Milcroft Inn, a peaceful little place hidden back among the pine trees about an hour out of Toronto and listenirg to the desperate sounds of a life-or-death struggle going on a few feet away.

There is a small fly burning out the last of its short life. The fly is trying to move out from the glass of the windowpane. Trying harder and harder to cross the window pane. But it is not working. The fly will not survive and will not be able to cross the window pane. The struggle is part of the trap as its leading no where. It is not possible for the fly to break the glass. The fly will give up life to break the glass. It will keep on working hard but nothing will happen. The fly moves out of the room by breaking the window pane.

“Across the room, ten steps away, the door is open. Ten seconds of flying time and this small creature could reach the outside world it seeks. With only a fraction of the effort now being wasted, it could be free of this self-imposed trap. The breakthrough possibility is there. It would be so easy”.

Why is the fly not trying the other way: something totally different? Why does fly not choose to move ten seconds and get out of the door? Less efforts, logical move – but different!

“Trying harder isn’t necessarily the solution to achieving more. It may not offer any real promise for getting what you want out of life. Sometimes, in fact, its a big part of the problem”.

People are playing by the ‘rules’ of the game which are seldom challenged. Here is a short story from the Greek literature which brings a very interesting moral: ‘There is more than one way to solve any problem in life’

Here is the story:

In ancient Greek mythology, Gordius, who was King of a state, gave a challenge to the people.

He declared that whoever could untie the ‘knot’ was destined to become ruler of all Asia.

People came one after the other and tried their level best to open the knot. No one was able to untie or open it fully. Puzzle remained where it was – the knot was still tied.

Then came Alexander the Great. He too tried his hand at the task but like others, he was also unable to get the knot untied. He got impatient.

He tried again and again with both hands to open the knot. However, knot was tied in a manner that he was unable to untie it with his hands. Impatience started growing.

Finally, he pulled out his sword and smashed it down on the knot, cutting it in half!.

Instead of using hands, he used his sword to cut the knot.

The king saw this and told the audience that his challenge was to untie the knot.

Though Alexander has used unconventional way, he has achieved the results. Alexander was awarded the prize and he became ruler of all Asia.

So, the moral of the story: There are more than one way to look at a problem. Unconventional ways may help at time! We might need to think more, re-frame the problem and think out of the box to find the solution.

Note: The above story is from the book: Tales for Coaching by Margaret Parkin

Those of you who are looking for spiritual enlightenment must go through this small book which was one of the New York best sellers.

Another important point which I found in the book was the strong verdict that a person is himself or herself creator of pain or pleasure. One need to live in present without fear of past or any tension of the future. This is the path to the enlightenment and what do we mean by enlightenment?

Our mind keeps on creating imaginary fear and imaginary future which we never see in our life – Those are just our thoughts!

Another interesting point was to know that we are all ‘waiters’. We are waiting for good times. We are waiting for promotion. We are waiting for success. We are waiting for money and in all this process, we are not living in the present moment. The key to joy is to enjoy the present moment. To realize harmony with the universe.

When success is concerned, people are not measured in inches, pounds or in term of their family background or wealth, people are measured in term of the size of their thinking. The bigger people think and act, more successful will they be.

The question is: How can we think Big?

In this blog post, I will share ideas from David Schwartz book, The Magic of Thinking Big!

A practical exercise

Here is a practical exercise which is used in certain motivational training workshops by David Schwartz which can be used by us too:

1. What are our five chief assets or qualities? We need to list them down.

We can take help of any our our friend or some one who can assess us. Those qualities may include our education or a particular skill or appearance or home life or any other item.

2. We need to write down names of three people who don’t have any of those assets but are still successful in life. (We need to look around and think hard on this but believe me, we will find some people who don’t have the qualities we have but those people are still successful)

David Schwartz says that once we complete the above exercise, we will realize that we outrank many people in life! We have certain qualities and certain assets which are not available with many successful people. If this is the case, we can be successful too.

Big thinkers are able to create a positive picture in minds of other people even when there is no good news to tell e.g. Instead of saying: We incurred a big expense, big thinkers say: We made a big investment!

Or, instead of saying that: We are afraid to report that we failed, big thinkers say: We need to make another attempt.

Let’s think of the situation when a person comes to us and say that we face a big problem.

This will create an image of despair and gloom. Instead this can be phrased as: We have a challenge to deal with.

We need to look at things not as they are in the present but what could those things be in the future.

An architect visualizes a house which is not built yet. An entrepreneur visualizes a successful business when there is no business plan on paper. A painter constructs a master piece in mind first before putting it on paper.

Many educated guesses are being made about the future. There are numerous books, articles and websites on this subject. However, these days, I am reading a book named: Future Files. Here are some ideas from the book about five trends that will shape science and technology in future:

1. Nanotechnology

Gone are the days when we used ‘floppy disks’ and ‘magnetic tapes’ for storing data. Now, there are USBs, flash drives and what not. This will shrink further. It may happen that there will be a small ‘chip’ for mobile phone and that smallest chip will be connected to fingers for dialing numbers. That is one of the examples of ‘nano’ technology. This technology will affect all industries. However, we will see public debate only when some ‘major’ nano-event happens!

2. Biotechnology

Genetics will be the talk of the world in next 20 – 25 years. People will be impacted by genetically enhanced humans! Biotechnology will be used for benefits of society but like every technology, it will be the brains behind the technology which will determine the use of the technology.

3. Emotionally aware machines

We might see cars with sensors. Those sensors will sense the ‘mood’ of the driver. Online retailers will tailor their pages according to the customers’ need and so on. Seems unbelievable? Once upon a time, flying in air was impossible too!.

4. Robotics

We may see small scale robots working all around, carrying bags, doing repetitive task and helping us in complex tasks. However, to see robotics on a vast scale, we might have to wait for 20 to 25 years!

5. Ethics

With the advent of digital era, privacy is long dead. The only way to maintain privacy is not to use any form of social media or mobile phone which are becoming necessities of life. Hence, debate on ethical use of technology is going to continue in time to come.

Note: The above ideas are from the book: Future Files by Richard Watson.

I was thinking to write something on techniques for better and effective learning and this post comprise of some ideas towards better learning. A few days back, I was watching Paul Mckenna’s lecture on accelerated learning.

He advised about a few techniques which can be used by us to learn effectively in less time. Here are few tips:

1. Concentration span: A person’s concentration span is generally 18 minutes. While reading course material, one should read for 18 minutes and then take a 4 minute smaller break and again study for 18 minutes.

2. Visualization: One should try to ‘visualize’ learning in the home environment.

Becoming a better manager is easy and Kenneth Blanchard has told us about doing it in one minute!

One Minute Manager was an international best seller which was translated in over 25 languages.

It is about a person who tried to become the best manager. He met a mentor – a person who was great manager. He told him about the one minute principle. Before we proceed to one minute principle, here are a few ideas from the author:

1. If God wishes us to talk more and listen less, he would have created two tongues and one ear!

2. It is not important what people do in front of you. The important thing is: What people do behind you.

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